House and Senate members can be notoriously thin‐​skinned when questioned about their policy and legislative choices. That was evident on April 14, when Sean Vitka, policy director for the left‐​leaning advocacy group Demand Progress, took to (formerly known as Twitter) to ask House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) ranking member Jim Himes (D‑CA) a question. Vitka asked whether Himes understood that an he co‐​authored and which was included in the just‐​House passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization bill granted federal electronic spies “Stasi ..read more

Tiffany Henyard, mayor of Dalton, Illionis. (Screenshot, vodolton​.org) The drama unfolding in Dolton, Illinois may seem irrelevant to those of us who are not among the 20,621 residents of the village immediately south of Chicago. But the controversy around Dolton’s self‐​styled “super mayor” Tiffany Henyard offers lessons about local government accountability that resonate nationwide. The problems in Dolton are more likely to occur in states that have an excessive number of governments and poor oversight. But Dolton’s story also illustrates the potential for citizen journalists and engaged re ..read more

Just shy of one year ago, the public that an FBI agent had conducted a query of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 database for information on 19,000 American donors to a congressional campaign, among other episodes of 702 database query misconduct. The revelations, contained in a partially declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , received massive media coverage and condemnation from House and Senate members across the political spectrum. The facts about these domestic surveillance abuses were not then and are not now in dispute. Ye ..read more

In recent weeks, a simmering conflict over the censorial practices of the Brazilian courts erupted i . Reporting from various sources shows how government forces— most notably Supreme Court Justice and President of the Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes—investigated, secretly censored, and arrested Brazilians accused of spreading “fake news” and “ ” misinformation, often with little due process. Social media companies were silenced and punished if they resisted. In response, X, formerly Twitter, declared that it would not comply with illegal and “ ” demands before retreating und ..read more

Merry Oaks Baptist Church in Chatham County, North Carolina, near the site of a new VinFast factory. North Carolina officials announced a long sought‐​after victory in early 2022: VinFast, a Vietnamese electric vehicle startup, will invest $4 billion to build a 2,000-acre automotive factory in Chatham County, creating 7,500 jobs for the community as it helps to restore the state to its former industrial glory. But skepticism grew about the plan as more details were released. The state intends to use eminent domain to purchase and then demolish over two dozen homes, five loc ..read more

In a ruling issued on April 17, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) that could unravel the very viability of social media company business models. The technical, inside‐​baseball nature involving advertising and data privacy means it has flown under the radar but nonetheless presents a dangerous precedent that uniquely targets American tech companies.  So first, what is going on in this case? In the EU, the sprawling (GDPR) places many demands on companies in how they manage the data of users, including requiring users to consent to the use of their data. As a result ..read more

that political speech “occupies the ‘highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values,’ and is entitled to special protection.” Yet lawmakers frequently target political speech and advocate for special regulation. A recent case, , raises the question: When Americans want to engage in political speech, to what extent can the government compel them to include its own desired speech as well? the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the answer seems to be that there is limit—localities can even make the government‐​mandated speech the primary message in someone else’s political ad. Such a&n ..read more

These kinds of things can be hard to quantify, but I imagine that former President Trump’s blistering TruthSocial this morning telling Congress to “Kill FISA” probably had some impact on the 19 House GOP members who voted against the procedural motion to bring the FISA “reform” to the House floor. The question now is what happens next? One thing we can count on is that Biden administration officials and their pro‐​surveillance allies in Congress will now step up the fear‐​mongering over the looming April 19 expiration of the existing FISA Section 702 program. The reality is that any curre ..read more

Last June, the Cato Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice (DoJ) seeking the underlying internal FBI audits of its own compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 program. Months went by. Via email, I asked the DoJ FOIA office what the hold‐​up was. In October 2023, they said they’d identified the records and would send them to the FBI for review. More months went by with no records. Earlier this year, Cato filed a FOIA lawsuit and a preliminary injunction seeking the release of the records ..read more

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the , which looks at the issue of when government communications with social media companies become illegal attempts to the expressive rights of social media platforms and their users. The overall takeaway of the oral arguments is that some justices seemed concerned about the government’s conduct in this case while others were concerned with the impacts on regular government communication with private actors. The court also discussed questions of legal standing that would sidestep the core constitutional questions. What follows is a summary of the ..read more